Duncan,
Gee, where did you work before the IPO :-)
Let's see where to begin... Since you want to use the "big" building for
storage, I guess what you do there is up to you, though it might be
cool to have the wood floor in the entire building instead of tile
(to give it that warehouse look...).
As far as the shop goes, I suppose the first thing you need is a way to get
cars into the shop - which means chopping a bigger door...
Second, how heavy duty are the supports for the second story of your shop - can
you put your "heavy" tools up there? Also, having an 8' ceiling
for doing auto work can suck, so maybe you'd want to consider turning the
second floor
into a balcony (which would be cool as you could put in one of those tracked
cranes for
lifting motors, etc., to the second floor to work on (I saw a shop with a
similar arrangement
once - the guy had his machine shop/assembly area on the second floor with a
big hole and a crane at the top to haul motors up with...).
Third, you definitely want separate clean, dirty, and painting areas (as well
as a separate
area for any machinery that doesn't do well with grit from the grinders
settling on it - you
can do this to some extent by cleverly arranging the layout so the grinders are
near a
BIG exhaust fan, but...
Fourth, put some of your equipment on rollers - I have a "too small shop" (a
mere 20 X 27),
and I started doing this out of necessity (there was a thread on this list once
about this - some
guy that did airplane stuff apparently wrote about this in a couple of his
books...) + its really
handy to be able to roll the workbench, grinders, etc., right next to what you
are doing...
(the workbench has 4X1000 lb. casters and a 5" wilton vise on it - works real
good +
the welder, plasma cutter, and a small welding bench are on rollers as well (I
haven't put the
grinder/belt sander on casters though that bench does have a couple of wheels
to ease moving it
about...).). - be sure to put swivel casters on all 4 corners (I HATE Craftsman
rollarounds because
they're too cheap to do this - I get tired of having to keep buying extra
casters....).
fifth, don't forget about proper ventilation for the shop - you can follow the
OSHA guidelines
for number of exchanges/hour for whatever you are doing, or...
Sixth, Don't forget about lighting - basically you can't get enough - put in as
much as you
can afford I went with several rows of 4 bulb flourescent lights over where I
do most
of my work - they are cheap, and if you get too much, you can always pull a few
bulbs out.
And seventh, don't forget about power - If you can, I'd get a separate panel
wired to these
buildings - go big - I put a 100 amp sub panel in my shop, and that was barely
big enough
for the welder I ended up with (I couldn't get 3 phase in my area, otherwise I
would have
had a completely separate mains run in...). - I also ended up putting plugs
every few feet
around the walls on alternating breakers, both of which had no lights attached
to them.
And don't forget about the "wild leg" method of getting 3 phase if you live in
a rural
district where they don't want to wire up a separate meter...
As far as the rest of the site goes, the only other thing I could recommend
would
be paving over a big area so you could have an autox course as well (can you
say "Speeed Acres"...), but that ain't cheap...
Good Luck,
rkg
(Richard George)
Still looking for a fire station to buy (can you say giant kitchen for the wife
and giant shop for the hubby?...)
> OK fellow car nuts..... this is your (mine) big opportunity to help design
> the ideal shop without having to spend any of YOUR money.
> I have just bought a house in SW Michigan that includes the following...
> a 72 X 24 foot building with 10 foot ceilings
> and
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